The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has issued more than $8 million in grants
to stimulate unconventional research, in the hopes of producing medical breakthroughs
unlikely to emerge through traditional research channels.

In contrast to most grants, which require applicants to provide lengthy and detailed
information, the Gates Foundation required applicants to submit only a two-page
application, with no preliminary data needed. Eighty-one recipients were selected for
starting grants of $100,000 each, out of more than 3,000 proposals. Recipients who show
success in preliminary studies may receive follow-up grants of $1 million.

Tachi Yamada, president of the foundations global health program, said that he
will not be disappointed if 90 percent of the projects fail.

The point is that where there are currently no solutions, we must work hard to
find new solutions, he said. We really believe that true innovation is needed.
Some of the ideas might seem crazy, but there is a fine line between crazy and absolutely
novel.

Grant recipients include teams working to detect malaria infection with a handheld,
magnetic device; to create a genetic library of all possible HIV mutations; to research
the bodys ability to carry pneumonia bacteria without becoming ill, in hopes of
developing an inhaled vaccine; to give cows a vaccine that causes mosquitoes
biting them to die or become sterile; to develop nanoparticles that attach to
tuberculosis-infected cells and release antibiotics over time; to test whether vaccines
could be delivered via proteins produced by insect viruses; to infect malaria mosquitoes
with a fungus that makes it hard for them to smell potential prey; to create antibodies
that attack the receptor proteins of immune cells, thus blocking HIV from infecting the
cells; and to develop a tomato that can be eaten to receive a dose of antiviral drugs.

Some things require a revolution, rather than an evolution, in thinking,
Yamada said. The problem is we can be locked into an orthodoxy of thinking that
shackles us and prevents us from thinking in novel ways. (Natural
News, 9.17.2009, David Gutierrez)